Present day mobile platforms, such as aircraft (manned and unmanned), spacecraft and even land vehicles, often require the use of a phased array antenna aperture for transmitting and/or receiving electromagnetic wave signals. Such antenna arrays are typically formed by a plurality of antenna elements assembled into an X-Y grid-like arrangement on the mobile platform. There is often weight from various components on which the radiating elements of the antenna are mounted, such as aluminum blocks or other like substructures, that form “parasitic” weight. By “parasitic” it is meant weight that is associated with components of the antenna aperture that are not directly necessary for transmitting or receiving operations, such as aluminum or metallic components on which antenna probes are supported. By providing an antenna aperture that is able to form a load bearing structure of a mobile platform, such as a portion of a wing, a portion of a skin of a fuselage, a portion of a door, or any other structural portion of a mobile platform, the number and nature of sensor functions capable of being implemented on the mobile platform can be increased significantly over conventional electronic antenna and sensor systems that require physical space within the mobile platform. An antenna that forms a structural portion of the mobile platform also would eliminate the aerodynamic drawbacks that the antenna aperture itself would give rise to or which must be designed in connection if the antenna aperture was to be mounted on an exterior surface of the mobile platform.
Providing a phased array antenna aperture that can form a structural portion of a mobile platform, and which is also comparable in weight to conventional composite honeycomb-like structural panels, and that could be manufactured with sufficient accuracy and to the high tolerance that is needed for precision antenna apertures, would allow a greater number of antennal/sensor applications to be implemented on a mobile platform over what is now possible with present day sensor systems that must be mounted within, or on an exterior surface of, a mobile platform. Such an antenna system would also potentially allow even greater sized antenna apertures to be implemented than what would otherwise be possible if the antenna aperture was required to be mounted within the mobile platform or on its external surface.